


Touch

by lady_krysis (saekhwa)



Category: Yu Yu Hakusho
Genre: 1000-3000 words, Asian Character, Canon - Anime, Character of Color, M/M, POV Character of Color
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-21
Updated: 2005-05-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 14:24:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saekhwa/pseuds/lady_krysis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When we lose the ones we love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to my lovely, darling Leslie who asked and who's waited ever so patiently for my muse to finally cooperate. If there are any mistakes, they are my own. Originally posted to the [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/smutyeah/profile)[**smutyeah**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/smutyeah/) community.

I.

He dreams of a thousand tears, all silent, pleading, hidden. So when he finally closes his eyes to dream, he watches the ring, watches black hair flutter and conceal a dark intent. And he realizes this place is all about hunger, and there are so many going around.

The blood stains sweep across the tiles, and sometimes, the blood soars into the crowd. It becomes a burning liqueur each cheering voice savors, admiring each distinctive taste and smiling at each step in its creation.

A part of him thrills at it, remembering meat caught between his teeth as he ran through the fields and the forests and the castles. It was the chase he used to love, and he finds these memories breaking into his thoughts as he watches blood gushing from stunted throats and broken limbs. He has a secret urge to transform it, dipping his fingers into a darkening rouge he would paint on soft skin. He won't remember the way his fingers crush into his sheets, the way his breath catches in his throat at night.

In his dreams, there is a young boy across the ring, grinning foolishly with no concerns about a looming threat that turns dreams into dark caves and bloodied bodies. In his dreams, he knows the young man doesn't think about death, doesn't even think of this tournament as murder. Demons aren't living creatures to him when he grins and smiles and laughs and sleeps forever as everything starts fading into red walls.

In this dream, he will stare at his own hands, feeling his pulse beat beneath his wrist, and when he looks into the mirror, there will be a fox staring back at him, a hungry fox who does nothing but patiently wait.

And behind the fox will be a slender, masked man.

II.

He will find himself wandering the halls in search of redemption, wondering if his own wounds will heal in the darkness.

He won't start when he faces a masked man who brushes slender fingers through his long hair.

He will wonder if there is a face behind that mask, if there are scars that justify its mystery, if there is a man at all. Yet he will still find himself dreaming of the touch of a ghost and blood spraying across his eyes. He will remember pale hands hovering over his skin and a temptation to push himself into a violent embrace, to make art out of broken things.

But a voice will whisper to him, and he will be left alone, staring at his own hands and telling himself, _no, there is no man._

There never was.

III.

Yusuke wonders if Kurama dreams, if he ever remembers being who he was. Mostly, he wonders if Kurama dreams about an older persona that seems trapped inside his head. Soon, he knows, he will have to face his friends in battle, and he wonders if Kurama will be there and what that will mean. He wonders what Kurama dreams of at night as the days draw closer to their inevitable face off.

He doesn't realize Kurama dreams every night. He doesn't realize he fills Kurama's dreams, floating down crumbled hallways and down stairs and into great shallows of darkness. He doesn't realize Kurama dreams about touch and about a face haunting him in the night.

Tonight, it is Karasu's face, sneering from behind a mask he imagines he will rip off, his teeth sinking into a tender throat and his lips finding the beating heart of a man.

IV.

He finds himself slipping, pushing him against the jagged shards of a mirror, trying to rip out the little fox who taunts him. He thinks of a better question and forms it into a you, staring pointedly at a face that doesn't know how to feel.

_We do feel, Kurama._ Then the question transforms into a memory, and he watches a brash boy dashing down the halls with a raised sword and furious cries of victory. And those halls transform into a room and those furious cries transform into pleasure beating against their skin.

He remembers the taste of blood when his teeth sink too deep, yet they don't care, letting it pour out and cover them. To him, it becomes a beautiful painting, and he likens it to art as if he were touched by a vision of something divine.

_You don't believe in anything_, Kurama tells him. _There's only power._

The reflection simply imitates him, mocks him, allows him to shudder in his memories of a brash boy bucking beneath him, crying out his name as a willing victim in this imaginative drama. And the fox merely releases a whisper lost in the groans of a victim _Yomi_.

Kurama will wake in the middle of the night again and think about touch.

V.

"We're not as different as you make yourself believe."

He doesn't remember sitting in this room, feeling temptation hovering so near his cheek. When he opens his eyes, he stares down violet memories and finds his gaze fixing on a mask.

_Do you think there's a man?_

He shakes his head slowly and hears cool laughter embrace his thoughts.

He reaches up and watches his fingers hover over pale skin, brushing against silk hair. He remembers watching Karasu's caress exploding against untamed monsters in a place he thought was home. _Where is your heart, Kurama? Do you think there's a man?_

When he feels the cool aura of Karasu's fingertips hovering, he stares into violet eyes, watching himself reflected infinitely in memories, but it is not his face staring back at him. And he wants to know.

So when he pushes his cheek against Karasu's hand, holding it against his skin, he sighs and inhales the lasting scent of blood on the pale man's fingers. There is no pain, no explosion, no violent release, and he still wants to know as memories of a naïve boy crying out his name in the dark heats his skin.

_Is there ... ?_

But there is only a shuddering release in the dark.

VI.

"Welcome back, Kurama."

He watches through a mirror and wonders how much of himself is still dreaming, if he still grips the sheets at night with the taste of heat and sweat on his lips. He hears a man crying out his name, feels an arched back stiffen, and he finds his thoughts swirling in this passionate embrace he doesn't know is real.

"Yusuke ... ," he whispers, but the fox smiles with a different name.

So when he opens his eyes, he finds himself staring at Yomi's exposed back, the scars etched around his spine where a fox had marked his possession. Yet still, even here, it was about power.

"You seem distracted tonight, Kurama," Yomi says.

He is staring out the window, distant, pondering, wondering how close Yusuke is or even whether he's prepared. He doesn't respond to the trail of fingertips down his spine or the heated breath brushing against his throat.

"Why do you choose your humanity? It is not natural for you, Kurama."

_Is there ... ?_

When he blinks, a masked man stares at him through the hallway, and he looks around the room, but there is no Yomi. And when he blinks again, he stares up at Karasu and grips the sheets as his skin tears beneath that pale touch.

"You wander these halls in search of redemption, Kurama." A cold breath brushes against his cheek. "And you always find yourself in the dark"—A tug on his hair—"with me."

He closes his eyes as Karasu's black hair blankets him, shields him from the searing, burning touch of his palms on his thighs.

"Do you deserve to be punished?"

His lips part, and his body arches.

"Is my touch redeeming you"—And for the first time, Kurama cries out as warm blood spills across his stomach—"for the one you love?"

VII.

The question echoes in his thoughts, and he imagines his arms wrapped around Yusuke, imagines his lips exploring that bruised body. The day is coming, and the little fox keeps waiting patiently.

He feels lost in the echoes of his own thoughts, staring at the battle scene as Yusuke advances, as Hiei advances, as Yomi and Mukuro advance.

"You ask silly questions, Kurama." When he turns, he has to blink as he stares at another mirror, watching his Yoko form lounged in a chair. "Is there a man?"

"I'm not sure I understand your intent."

His Yoko form gestures toward him, and there is Karasu standing there patiently. He wonders if the man is smiling beneath the mask.

"You continue to ask the same question, but only as if you fear the answer."

He is pressed against the wall in the next instant, feeling Karasu's hands caressing his body, cutting his skin.

"Do not ask the question," his Yoko form says. "Discover the answer."

Kurama bites his lower lip, feeling his teeth sink too deeply and draw blood as he's pushed deeper into the wall, his cheek scraping against the rough stone.

"Do you imagine him begging," Karasu whispers, his blade trailing down Kurama's spine. "Does he call your name in the dark?"

_"Kurama."_

Kurama blinks, shakes his head, inhales a breath.

_"Kurama."_

He sees Yusuke beneath him, his lips parted, his groans of pleasure echoing in the room. And he feels himself pushing harder and harder, feeling that climax, that beautiful release where Yusuke isn't such a far away thing anymore.

_"Kurama."_

"How often do you dream about him?" Karasu cuts him then, down his thigh, his fingers dipping quickly in the blood.

"Discover the answer, Kurama. The boy needs to know." He feels that fox so close to his ear then brushing past him, melting into the backdrop of this new pain on his thigh.

"He bleeds so prettily, doesn't he, Kurama?"

_Is there ... ?_ His thoughts beg an answer, and he doesn't know why he hesitates. He didn't hesitate in the ring when he was faced with just another monster. _Is there a man?_

And he hears Karasu's laughter echoing around him in the dark, bleeding him and cutting him open in search of a little fox who sighs softly and shakes his head in disappointment as he flies away, down the hall and into a searing light. Just another monster melting in the dark.

He twirls around, feels his nails claw into soft skin just as the mask clatters to the floor, and he finds there is no man. There never was a man.

"Yusuke," he whispers, staring at pointed teeth and black jagged hair and claw marks etched into his face. "Yusuke."

There was supposed to be a man, he tells himself, pressing against the wall. There was supposed to be a man. He closes his eyes, and the little fox laughs.

VIII.

Just another monster. It burns inside him as he falls to his knees, his life another blurry haze as he stares at the blood on his hands and hears Karasu's laugh, soft and cool and violent.

"Yusuke," Kurama whispers, realizing that soft laugh is not Karasu's at all, not the way it echoes. "Yusuke."

Just a little fox biding his time for a perfect moment. And Kurama starts to melt into himself, opening a portal to his own world where he and Yusuke could be at peace, away from the bloodshed and away from the masks and the monsters in the dark.

"Yusuke."

_Kurama._

IX.

He smiles in this place then frowns when he pricks his finger on the cacti as he absently starts petting the delicate blooms. He inhales the soft fragrance and nods as he lifts the pot.

"Yusuke, I have a surprise for you."

Long ago, he stopped hearing the insidious laughter. He still feels the bruises and the cuts where Karasu first touched him, and he hears the echo of a voice telling him to come back. Without Yusuke, he knows, there is nothing to go back to. At least here, in this quiet, humble place, they can be together.

"Yusuke, I saw this and thought of you." He places a blanket over him and presents the flower.

He doesn't mind Yusuke's silence, although he finds himself missing that rough sense of humor. He sits on the edge of the bed, feeling his smile break as he stares into Yusuke's face, his fingers falling on a chilled wrist.

"I saw everything and thought of you."


End file.
